This Woman's Graphic Selfies Are a Powerful Reminder of How Dangerous Tanning Is for You

If you've heard it once, you've heard it a million times: Tanning, in a bed or on the beach, is bad. It causes skin cancer—not to mention wrinkles, but that's not a matter of life and death. If you weren't aware of this, please shove aside and make room for us in that bunker. (We'll need a four-year lease.) Despite the awareness, skin cancer is still the most common type of cancer. It's everywhere. Literally: Did you know you could get skin cancer in your vagina? (Yep.) And, even if you do your due diligence and check your skin on a regular basis using a skin-check guide, you might not be in the clear.

That's the case with Mags Murphy. For 10 years, she lived on the sunny Greek island of Crete, where she rarely used sun protection, and in her native Ireland, she regularly visited tanning salons to make up for the not-so-sunny weather there. Several weeks ago, a doctor discovered precancerous cells on her face. "I had a tiny dry patch on my forehead for years, and then developed two more," says Murphy. "They didn't bother me too much because my hair hid them." She's since begun using a topical chemotherapy cream called Efudix, and, for the past three weeks, has been sharing the experience on her Facebook blog to educate and warn others—and we're so glad she is.

The cream has some seriously gruesome side effects (if you couldn't tell) like redness, burning, stinging, peeling, scabbing, crusting, and oozing. The more sun damage you have, the worse they tend to get, so patients like Murphy don't really know how bad they'll be before they start. (In fact, her brother had used Efudix and his side effects weren't as severe.) Unfortunately, the cream isn't the sort of thing you can use to spot-treat if you have, say, a suspicious mole or two.

"It's most commonly used as what we call 'field therapy'," says Joshua Zeichner, M.D., dermatologist and director of Cosmetic & Clinical Research in Dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC. "It lights up in areas of the skin where there's sun damage, so it can treat existing lesions as well as changes in your skin that are not yet clinically apparent." It's so effective at treating even precancerous cells that it works as a preventative measure. "We commonly use it in patients who have a history of skin cancer to treat the rest of their face that was equally exposed to the sun," adds Zeichner.

In her photo series, you can see how quickly it goes to work.

Day 3

After only 72 hours of using the cream, Murphy already began to develop spots. "You can see some of the damage start to show," she writes.

Day 10

"My beard is very itchy and hot 🔥 Can't scratch it so just tap my face to hit the itch, I'm sure I look like a looney🙃," Murphy captioned the photo.

Day 14

"My face is burning and throbbing today,my chin feels the worst, it's a little swollen and I'm sure something is going to erupt from under there," she says.

Day 18

"Face very dry still some sort of scabbing is occurring, feels like I've had too much botox all over, it's a job to even eat cause can't stretch my mouth," writes Murphy.

Day 21

Now, currently on day 24 of her 30-day treatment, Murphy says what's helped her the most is the support she's received from thousands of people. One such message that stuck with her was from a girl who posted on her Facebook page. She wrote that Murphy's followers should listen to the warnings because she had stage IV melanoma and her doctors were only prolonging her life—not saving it. Murphy found it so moving that she even posted a screenshot of it so everyone following her page—which is currently over 18,000 people—could see it.

That number's astounding, considering Murphy only created the Facebook page to share the experience with her friends. "Some of them are sun lovers, and I was hoping they would pay attention," she says. We're guessing they did—as did thousands of others.

At the risk of sounding preachy (but if there's truly any time to be, it's over this), heed her warning and start making a habit of wearing sunscreen daily. We've got a whole list of derm- and editor-approved options here.

Update: Actor Hugh Jackman recently talked about his sixth bout with skin cancer, and our Jessica Radloff spoke about it on The Talk. With Hugh coming forward, it begs the question: How often do you heed other people's advice? Here, The Talk's Julie Chen, Aisha Tyler, Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne and Sheryl Underwood weigh in.